Which port 'MSC DIVINA' from Miami will access

Cruise description says Cristobal Cruise Port, which is confusing now as travel agent asked me this question: "the port which you have listed has not been in operation for the past four years. The ports that you would most likely access will be Colon 2000, Homeport or Gatun Yacht Club. Our cruise line MSC DIVINA cruise line from Miami.

MSC has been very slow in updating their port info. First of all the Gatun Yacht Club is only used if your ship is doing a "partial transit." This is where your ship enters the Canal and locks up through Gatun Locks and discharges passengers that wish to take a shore excursion at the GYC. The GYC is only used to disembark passengers as no re-boarding takes place here. Most ships that are making Colon a port of call will use the Colon 2000 facility, while it is possible if there were more than one ship in Colon the day you stop the the Homeport pier could be used. They are near each other. Cristobal has as you say not been used in a few years, they now handle exclusively containers.

In a practical sense there is no real difference between Cristobal and Colon. The Cristobal piers are on the west side of Colon facing Limon Bay while the Colon 2000 pier is on the east side of Colon facing Manzanillo Bay. Both Bays are all part of the Atlantic terminus of the Canal and the piers are only about two miles apart by land.

I had a similar discussion with someone who was taking a MSC cruise last year and the old Cristobal/ Colon question arose. I answered pretty much as above, possibly in greater detail and asked if someone would report back as to what actually occurred. Nobody did, but if you really want to find out more than you need to know, here is a link to the thread:).

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1944114&highlight=where+does+msc+dock

BillB48, thank you very much for your explanation.

So in case if there were more than one ship in Colon the day we stop then the Homeport pier could be used. How do we find out in advance? My tour guide in Panama needs to know where to pick us up.

This is the web site I look at, there are others but for what I need this works well enough. Just know that none of these sites are completely accurate.

http://cruisett.com/content.php Then go to ports, go to the country and select your port/s and plug in the date. Below is the one for Colon

http://ports.cruisett.com/schedule/Panama/141-Colon

As long as your tour guide knows the name of your ship there won't be any problem in finding your ship. Below is a picture of Colon 2000 pier I took from my ship that was docked at "Homeport" pier. They are very close to one another. This would only come into play with more than one ship in port.